DOD: Russian troops mass near Ukraine border

The United States is not planning to give weapons or “lethal” assistance to Ukraine following Thursday’s downing of an airliner in its conflict zone, nor does it plan any major U.S. military response to the crisis, the Pentagon said Friday.

Press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby repeated U.S. calls for a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine but said the “focus” of American assistance to Kiev will remain on non-lethal supplies and equipment, even though he acknowledged Ukraine has asked for both lethal and non-lethal help.

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President Barack Obama set the tone for Washington’s response to the Malaysian airliner crash earlier Friday during a press conference at the White House. He made clear he blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for the ongoing conflict, even if officials can’t prove Russia or Putin are responsible for the deaths of the nearly 300 people on the aircraft.

“He has the most control over that situation, and so far he has not exercised it,” Obama said of Putin.

There are about 10,000 to 12,000 regular Russian combat troops inside their border with Ukraine, Kirby told reporters at a Pentagon briefing, an increase from a few weeks ago but a smaller force than the roughly 40,000 that were there earlier in the standoff.

Kirby also confirmed that defense officials have long observed movements of weapons and advisers from Russia to pro-Russian separatists inside Ukraine, although he said the Pentagon has not specifically seen a heavy, tracked surface-to-air missile launcher like the one believed to have shot down the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

A video posted on social media Friday appeared to show just such a launcher — an SA-11 or variant — being driven on a flatbed truck out of Ukraine and into Russia. The vehicle in the video is missing one of the four missiles it can accommodate on its topside rails.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday the U.S. believes a missile from an SA-11-like launcher hit the Malaysian airliner, fired from an area inside Ukraine controlled by the rebels. Only a heavy-duty missile could reach an aircraft at that altitude, she said, as compared to a lighter, cheaper, shoulder-fired weapon. At least one SA-11 was previously spotted inside Ukraine, she said.

Most critically, American officials say, a radar-guided battlefield surface-to-air missile system requires trained operators in order to use.

“It is unlikely that the separatists could effectively operate the system without assistance from knowledgeable personnel,” Power said. “Thus, we cannot rule out technical assistance from Russian personnel in operating the systems.”

Kirby put it another way. “It strains credulity,” he said, to imagine Ukrainian fighters detecting, tracking and firing on an aircraft without at least some kind of technical help from Russia. What isn’t clear yet, he said, is the nature of how the missile was deployed and who actually fired it.

“Exactly who, whether it was a Russian military unit that did it, or it was a separatist unit that did it, we don’t know,” Kirby said. “Whether it was a system that was driven across the border by Russians and handed off to separatists, we don’t know. We just don’t know. Answering some of those questions is going to be what the investigators get at.”

Also unclear, officials say, is why Russians or their allies in Ukraine might have attacked the airliner. They have shot down several previous military aircraft, including helicopters, cargo transports and an attack jet. So, Obama and Kirby were asked, did they mistake the Boeing 777 for another Ukrainian An-26 cargo plane? Or did the separatists launch on an unarmed airliner deliberately in an act of pure terror?

“It’s too early for us to be able to guess what the intentions of those who might have launched this surface-to-air missile might have had,” Obama said.

At the Pentagon, Kirby said the U.S. does not know whether the weapons that destroyed the earlier Ukrainian aircraft were SA-11s, or even generally whether they were the same as the one that brought down the Malaysian aircraft. Ukrainian officials are said to have charged that one of their Su-25 Frogfoot attack jets might even have been shot down in an air-to-air engagement with a Russian warplane.

The other major outstanding question on Friday was what the U.S. and its allies could do once they’ve established definitively what has happened. Obama said agents from the FBI and National Transportation Safety Board are en route to Ukraine to help with the investigation. And he emphasized that the process be international and “credible,” warning against Russian “propaganda” about what happened.

If an investigation substantiates what American officials have charged, Washington must decide how to further isolate and punish Moscow. Obama left open the door to more economic sanctions this week when he announced his latest restrictions on Wednesday, and hawks say the U.S. should waste no time imposing them.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who leads the U.S. delegation to NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, said Obama should order military assistance for Ukraine. Appearing on CNN, he also said Washington and Europe need to further isolate Russia diplomatically and economically.

“It’s not just an issue of talking tough,” Turner said. “It’s acting tough. The NATO allies and European allies have been moving cautiously with sanctions. That of course is a dial that can be turned up.”